


Scatologia

by InLoveAndSqualor



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Killjoys, Bandom - Freeform, M/M, MCR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:24:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InLoveAndSqualor/pseuds/InLoveAndSqualor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Party Poison is sent to Battery City to convert another of its citizens, recruit another Killjoy, he never could have guessed the things he'd learn about himself...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scatologia

A weary hand resting on the gear stick, his dyed-red hair blowing fecklessly around his features, Gerard made his way across the oppressive expanse of Battery City. Not that anyone would have recognised that name anymore, not that he'd even heard it uttered in years. His name was Party Poison now and the person who he was before, the life he'd had before, was all but forgotten these days. He was a part of the revolution now, a survivor, a KillJoy. BLind had taken his name away, along with everything that he was, and then the KillJoys had given him a new one, given him back the chance to have an identity.

The acrid luminosity of the neon strip-lights mounted in the tunnel he approached beckoned him, before bathing him completely in uneasy light, as he drove into their depths. The feel of sleaze and degradation they invoked sat uncomfortably alongside the signs they were there to illuminate; stark black and white posters from Better Living Industries declaring that they were 'Building a Better You'. The sentiment stuck in his throat, the idea that he had once read those slogans and found in them a sense of peace appalled him.

The tyres chewed up the tarmac as if they had a purpose tonight. No purpose. No destiny. He just wanted to drive into oblivion. Whenever he had to make the trip through Battery City he just wanted to drive until he felt as if he could escape, with the sensation, the clinical regulated world that surrounded him. He had to do this though, be here in this awful city. He would drive through to the other end of town tonight, his mission required it. Heading out so early meant he could camp out over night, wake just after dawn, when it was least likely he'd run into anyone, a draculoid, a poor controlled soul, even a fellow KillJoy. 

The only time he felt he could escape in this bleakly-clinical world was when he was driving. It was a constant reminder that he was one of the free. And when he dared to keep his foot on the peddle, flat to the floor, accelerating beyond the goddamn BLind 'Safe-driving Speed Standards' he felt his whole self gloriously filled with freedom and life, shaking off the sedation the sights of the city engulfed you in. There's something about all that power in your hands, the roar of the engine below, that makes the stark controlled world outside, streaming by, seem like nothing as you rip through it.

He was a survivor of _them_ , a revolutionary. The KillJoys had saved him from BLind's control and now he owed it to them to fight; to open people's eyes and help those that were there, ready, waiting to break free.

Not taking a pill everyday to feel okay was hard, but fuck at least it was real.

Tomorrow destiny would catch up with him and he could feel it; tomorrow he had to make contact with the target. 

The KillJoys had found another one, someone else to be woken up.

***

I woke up about dawn, the remains of my campfire smouldering lazily in the morning's early light. I'd slept out in the open air, my banged up old Pontiac Firebird parked a few yards from me, covered in the large sand coloured tarp I'd brought along to avoid unwanted attention.

I preferred sleeping under the stars, it reminded me of everything I had now, of how I'd escaped my old synthetic existence. In some ways it gave me enormous hope to see the natural world out there in the desert beyond Battery City, still surviving, escaping it's all reaching touch. 

Groaning as I pulled my tired body from the ground and got to my feet, I stretched out aching limbs, listening as the eerie silence was broken now and then by the odd bird stubbornly declaring their existence to the skies. I watched happily as the dusty ground around my feet stirred and then settled as if I'd never been there at all.

Today my mission hung heavily in the air. Another KillJoy could be with us within hours and that sense of purpose sent a nervous energy to the pit of my stomach and a vice like tightening in my chest.

Packing up my camp and kicking away the embers of my fire I anxiously went over my task ahead.

Our targets were handpicked, chosen for showing signs of resistance to BLind's control. We never forced them, it had to be their choice. We found those that wanted to be free. All we could ever do was help them to make their choice, help them remember who they were and show them there could be another way.

Breathing in the cool dewy air I rummaged in my pocket for the handwritten note I'd kept there, resisting the urge to look at the photographs of the target I'd been handed alongside it days before. All that was written on it was a set of carefully drawn numbers; a Battery City phone number.

"Hello destiny," I said to the note smiling.

Something told me this one would be anything but simple, anything but a normal mission.

I folded the small piece of paper and returned it reluctantly to my pocket. 

Carrying my small bundle of blankets and cooking pots to my car I squinted at the sprawling and vulgar backdrop of Battery City. The enormous cold buildings, the harsh granite like roads that snaked up to it. Snagging off the tarp to reveal my car I thought of all those people asleep now and how they never really ever woke up there; their trance-like existences, vicious and clinical. I looked at the city ahead and took one last chance to enjoy that feeling of being free here on the outside looking in.

***

I didn't have far to drive, there was a phone booth just a few minutes inside the city. The Battery City number in my pocket could only be called from one of the Better Living Industries phones inside the city. And using the phone on the deserted strip of land within the border made calling just that little bit less of a risk.

Crossing over, it always happened so terrifyingly quickly, the natural beauty of the surrounding desert giving way starkly to the savage black and white metropolis.

Although I'd travelled into their jurisdiction and smoking was one of the many countless things 'not permitted' there I could fight the compulsion no longer. I reached over nervously to retrieve my cigarettes from the passenger seat where they lay discarded. 

A cigarette, I told myself, would calm these nerves; besides around there the chances of being noticed were close to zero. It was as if being even this close to the lawless desert and its anarchic inhabitants was too much for the controlled populous, that they just naturally found any excuse to stay in the heart of their comfortable prison.

Pressing in the car's cigarette lighter I blinked at the scene ahead, I was close to my destination now and my hand on the wheel twitched nervously at the thought.

The click of the heated lighter popping back free stirred me from my restless and uneasy anticipation. 

I lifted the hot glowing metal, the colour of burning summer sunsets, to the cigarette between my lips. Taking a drag, pulling in noxious smoke as it lit, setting the smallest fire roaring below me.

Before I knew it I was at the phone booth, the BLind insignia emblazoned across it declaring proudly that 'Everything is Perfect'. Pulling up I looked for signs of unwelcome company; a draculoid, a BLind employee, even an inhabitant that had somehow dared this close to the lawless desert. But bleak and somehow comforting nothingness surrounded me on all sides. 

Stepping out of the car I took a final drag on my cigarette before discarding it to the spotless ground and crushing it under an uneasy foot.

Once again I pulled out excitedly the handwritten number I had been carrying with me all that time alongside the fake BLind ID card that I needed to make the call. I couldn't use the one I'd had in my old life there, before I'd been set free, although I always carried it with me as a macabre souvenir of the past. My old card would trigger their security, now that I was a wanted man, an escapee and a fugitive. But then there was always a risk with our faked cards too, always a risk that they could be detected; that was why we never used the same one twice anymore. We had learnt all too dearly that lesson in the past. 

Transferring the note and card to my left hand, I decided it was time to look at the photographs I had been handed alongside them. I'd made a point of not looking at them until then, resisting the temptation along the way, leaving it until contact with the target was imminent. I felt as if it could somehow give more gravitas to what I was about to do, more meaning to an awkward phone call. If I saw them perhaps I could make them a person and not just a job.

_And maybe it'd be easier not to see you…_

Pulling out all four, I noted under hand that they'd been developed the old fashioned way, in a darkroom and by another human being. And that gave me comfort, in the same way that my car did, it told me that I had, we all in the KillJoys had, escaped the savagery of the digital world.

The first three were typical surveillance shots like hundreds I'd seen before. All featured a male figure dressed in white and black, each taken from different angles; just stepping in or out of buildings with Battery City as a looming backdrop. But the fourth was different; the final photograph was an old creased Polaroid. God knows where our guys had got that from. In it a man stood smiling, his arm warmly thrown over the shoulders of a person by his side just out of shot. He had dyed-dark hair cut into a fringe that fell at an angle over one side of his face. Little precious touches of rebellion littered my view, from the silver ring that curved seductively around his lower lip to the faint eyeliner smudge and Misfits T-shirt he sported… And that obvious and wondrous smirk that shone through his expression, that played mischievously on his perfect lips. He had a wonderful smile, so full of life, that it was almost as if they parted to sing it out aloud. And those deep dark hazel eyes were something I could get lost in…

_Because I never expected you to be beautiful… I find you all the more enchanting._

The photograph in my hands shuddered as a light breeze swept through this lonely part of the city and the movement awakened me from my ardent trance.

I ran my fingers around the white border of the Polaroid absentmindedly, he just looked like a different person altogether in this older shot, a memory frozen in celluloid to be rediscovered by someone that would care to look. And the possibility of who he was and how wonderful he might have been made my imminent actions all the more overwhelming. 

_Are you going to still be there?_

_You looked so embroiled in the excesses and ecstasies of living…_

_And if only I could reach my hand in through this picture… To touch your face._

And although it evaded me how an aging photograph, an unfamiliar face, could evoke such longing, I knew that I had felt this way before once. Somewhere inside me told me Gerard had felt this before.

Returning the image amongst the others it was clear why the final had entranced me so, because in it a man stood, a unique individual unlike any other on the planet, with beautiful and free thoughts and feelings; ideas and ideals shared by no other.

I had to see if that man still existed, I had to know if he'd escaped destruction and lay buried dormant underneath the cooling blanket of BLind's all consuming control.

I just had to know.

The phone booth beckoned and smiled lazily in the harsh morning sun. Stepping into it a biting reluctance gripped me, this was the closest I could ever come to stepping back into their world. Punching in the numbers I'd been given my hands shook mercilessly before me, making redialling countless times my only option.

_I want to meet you…_

Slotting in the card I let out a nervous breath that shook in my chest as it leaves. Scolding myself for almost forgetting I switched off the Video Calling before it was too late. It was never a good idea for the target to see you too early, to them we were just the outlaws flashed up daily in news reports, to them we were the enemy.

The receiver to my ear, the ringing seemed to go on forever, and I couldn't stop my fingers from drumming restlessly against the small LED screen fixed there for Video Calling that now flashed up messages from BLind. _Love is a Pill_ it read before _Keep Smiling_ flashed up aggressively in larger, sterner, letters.

Finally my target answered the phone, and immediately I felt my body relax, my fingers unfurling to rest against the cool surface of the video screen. 

"Yes?" Answered a man's voice; it sounded hazy and far away, but then their voices all sounded that way, the same awful sedated drone.

Inexplicably I couldn't answer, my lips just trembled into the receiver. And when I searched my mind for the reasons they just weren't there. 

"Yes?" Came again, and I swear I could hear the slightest pang of trepidation in that voice. "Why can't I see you? Your… Your Video Calling isn't on. Who is this?"

He was different, it was hard detect, but if you searched for them, you could find those little touches of human emotion painted on the crests of his words, like surf on the waves. Their drugs and their methods hadn't destroyed his nature, it was there under the surface waiting to be uncovered. And it then seemed obvious why he'd been chosen.

"I… I need to speak to you," I stuttered, composure lost in me, the hard learned plan for this moment almost completely forgotten.

"What about…? I don't know you…" He replied hazily.

The hope that swelled in my heart and fogged up my mind made the memories of that Polaroid in my pocket come to life, I imagined that free man on the other end of the line and it was more than I could bear not to have him here…

The plan was all but forgotten and I knew that wasn't good. I tried to return to the script and blurted out the first lines that I could remember.

"How do you feel?" Came crashing out, sounding so strange out of context.

"Huh?" The confused reply.

I had no choice but to go with this now.

"How do you feel?" I repeated again, all the gravity of the meaning poured into each word.

"I don't… I… Mean _Everything is Perfect_ ," he replied, a haunting mix of uneasiness and dulled controlled tones.

_I can hear you there trying to break out…_

"Look," he said vaguely. "This kind of talk, it's not permitted."

It killed me that he was speaking their words, he was quoting BLind like they'd taught him to do. 

I willed him to fight; fight against the drugs, the rules, all the falsities and countless messages drummed into a weakened mind, but really I wished it for me. 

_Fight it…_

And I've never cared so much.

_I want to see that smile for real…_

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" My lips betrayed me. I couldn't control this.

" _They say Love is a Pill_ ," he answered robotically.

"Yes… Yes, I know," I sighed, commanding calm where all my mind was a frenzy. "I know what they say but what do you think?"

I kidded myself that this wasn't me losing it, that this was another way of helping him to remember. But how could I pretend that this wasn't about me?

"But… I think. I think that Everything is Perfect … That's all," his strained reply.

And was it wrong that it thrilled me to distraction that I was getting to him?

"And what about lust?" I enquired recklessly, my whole body shaking, my fingers twisting ceaselessly through and amongst the phone's cord.

And all I could hear in return were his nervous helpless breaths grazing over the receiver to fill my ears with what felt like a melody.

_I can't stop this._

I ask myself how can my body ache for a man I've never even met? How can it stir in these ways for a stranger?

"Do you believe I could want you just from the sound of your voice? Do you believe that could be true?" I almost laughed incredulously, and really I was asking myself. "And it's crazy but it's like each careless breath I hear you take is a caress down my spine… And the thought of you it's driving me wild."

Silence.

And I feared that I'd gone too far, that this would all be too much; that I'd indulged myself before saving him.

"I can't… You can't… These things you're saying they're not permi…" He replied.

"But have you ever asked yourself why?" I cut him off desperately. "Why can't you want…? Why can't you love? What's wrong with the idea that you might need another person?"

Silence again, a silence that was thick with unanswered questions and this awkward desire.

And I couldn't shake the feeling, that odd sensation that he was reaching into me and unlocking my past, setting free my secrets and wandering through my depths. 

And with each strained impulse it stripped away another of my life's events, they took me back before the KillJoys, before the merciless hold of BLind, before the aftermath and before the event that changed our world forever.

_It seems like I'll always be finding new memories, new feelings, new sensations that BLind had taken from me._

I felt reckless and crazy, and although I couldn't explain it, couldn't begin to understand it, in the midst of all this I was so incredibly turned on.

I leant my palm flat against the booths active screen, as it's passively cruel messages, stoic and calm, flickered past.

"Do you know what I'd do to you if you were here with me now?" I breathed, my voice thick and uncontrolled. "I can't remember the last time that I've been with somebody. Can you? I can't for the life of me remember the last time I tasted that hot salty taste of sex on my tongue, let myself get lost completely in the feeling of someone else's body pressed against my own… I can't remember all those moments but I know I've had them… Can you?"

Silence remained, dark and consuming, and it was unbearable; the blood pounding in my ears near to deafening.

"You never answered my question," I insisted; making one last attempt to salvage this. "Do you think I could want all that from someone I've never known, never even met?"

And I knew this was reckless, more than irresponsible, but I felt like a moth drawn toward a burning flame, I couldn't have stopped this even if I'd wanted to. The need in me to release the tension that inched up my flesh, growing greater than my mission, overwhelming any sense of duty I had had.

"I can… I do," mercifully came his whispered answer. 

"But this… It… It's not…" He began.

"I know, I know," I cried in desperation. "Just… Fuck what's permitted."

I couldn't keep my frustrations in check, as nausea shuddered through me, and unsteadily I leant my dizzying body against the cool surface of one wall of the booth.

"Do you remember how it feels when you kiss someone? How it tastes? How it can be harsh and desperate or slow and warm? How every kiss is different, somehow completely new and unique? And how sometimes you can't stop yourself from trailing your hands up their body… And you just lose yourself in that other person completely… Like you're dancing with them into a climax…" I stopped momentarily, trying to compose myself, trying to stop.

"Passion… I guess it's a force like no other," I sighed, a coded apology for my indiscretions. 

I wished he'd answer me, I wished he'd tell me what it was that he was thinking.

I heard nothing but short, sharp, desperate breaths and realised that my own were tearing out my chest, laboured and ragged.

"Come out beyond the city limits," I practically whispered, afraid of what I was asking, the answer that I almost couldn't bear to hear. "Come and I'll show you how it feels to have all those things; how it feels to hold another, want another. You know it's funny, but somehow, you can lose your pain in the warmth of a kiss. I can't explain it… I just want you to know all these things… Feel alive again…"

I let the still and silence return to this desolate part of the city, until I swore I could hear nothing but my heart beating it's fast agonising rhythm, feel it ripping through every inch of my body.

I waited anxiously for his answer, for what seemed like forever I waited; the sun glaring off the glass panes of the booth, the air inside warm and stale.

_And like a shining beacon of hope in this desolate world you answered me… You said yes._

***

My boots rested on the dusty ground, my elbows digging in as I settled them on my thighs. Cool air disturbed the hair that fell about my face and blew the smoke from my cigarette up into the ether. The car door left swung open, I sat looking out, perched sideways on the passenger seat, gazing anxiously at the desert stretching out into the landscape.

I sat perfectly still trying to ride out the nerves and unease, my body perfectly still, my mind racing at a hundred miles per hour. It shocked me that this meant so much, that I wanted so to meet him, that I feared so completely the disappointment that I believed I was imminently bound to feel. There were no guarantees that he would come and that if he did I wouldn't find before me just half a man, a glimmer of who I wanted.

Taking an indulgent drag on the cigarette balanced lightly between my fingers, the rich woody smoke warm and inviting, I glanced up at the sun sitting lazily in the middle of the horizon. And could I dare to think it wouldn't be long now? Trepidation and excitement building with every minute that passed.

_And would it be that you won't come for me? That you'll have me waiting for the end of time? Because I think that's what I'd have to do..._

I threw the remains of my cigarette to the ground and watched it smoulder and die, blown along by the relentless afternoon breeze.

I heard a scuff of feet in the hot dust behind me and automatically reached over for my gun, realising I'd left it locked in my glove box. Distraction had left me with my guard completely down. I could've kicked myself if I hadn't been so busy panicking. I jumped out of the car, on autopilot, grasping the passenger door's frame, knuckles bleaching white under the pressure. Turning to face the disturbance I expected to face the muzzle of a gun.

But what I saw was something just as alarming, inexplicably it felt to me to be just as dangerous.

The target, my target: so at odds with his surroundings, a still figure disturbing the chaos of nature around it.

I expected him to gesture, call out, but instead he stood staunchly, the wind ripping through his clothes, occasionally blinking expressionless eyes.

What to do, how to act, failed me. I guessed usually you'd call out a name, wouldn't you?

Taking a deep breath I threw shut the car door gripped beneath my hand, eagerness and reluctance dancing hand in hand down my spine. I fought endlessly against it as I walked around the car and towards the mesmerising figure standing before me. 

It was always hard to talk to them, having to remember that once I was like that.

As I got ever closer I studied his expression, his lips slightly parted, a look of strained concentration painted upon his features. I could see in him that wild alluring carefree creature from my Polaroid fighting to break free.

_You're a miracle..._

"You made it," I laughed, desperately trying to sound cool; cooler than I felt.

The corners of his lips twitched into a slight smile and it sent a thrill right down to the pit of my stomach.

Flashes of my phone call came rushing back, heavy breaths shuddering down the line, my voice breaking under the weight of confused arousal.

_You're still beautiful under there aren't you?_

And when I needed to keep it together, keep this on track. I could feel myself losing it, those thoughts just kept throwing me off.

"Do you know who I am? Why you're here?" I asked, stepping closer still, trying to make this about my mission and not just myself.

"The call…" He stuttered, his features contorting as if he was struggling to regain some memory, revive some lost part of his mind. 

"The phone call…" He paused again, searching for the right words, dealing with sensations he'd not encountered in years.

I couldn't help but smile at him, there were so many things that I couldn't help but do around him.

"Do you understand who I am? Why I might have contacted you?" I enquired tenderly.

"You're a criminal, I've seen your wanted poster… But… You called me because you wanted me to remember…" He looked at me puzzled. "You made me remember some things… But… I never knew I'd forgotten them."

"Yeah me too," I laughed, remembering the desire that had invaded me, that still lingered swimming across my surface.

"I… I've seen a photograph of you," I said routing clumsily around in my pocket, hunting for the Polaroid, unsure entirely if this was the right thing to do.

_I want to show you how beautiful you can be... You are._

The photograph trembled beneath my fingers, touched by my anxieties and the deserts restless breeze. His eyes smiled enquiringly down at my outstretched hand.

_You're a wonder... One of nature's miracles. Tell me how it can be that you survived their world._

Staring transfixed at the picture he raised an uncertain hand to his lip as if feeling for the ghost of his lip ring that was once there. A single tear rolled down his cheek but it was obvious to me that he didn't feel it.

"I… I was…" He said to the arid ground beneath his feet.

"You were beautiful," escaped me as I dropped the photograph at our feet and reached over to curl an arm around his waist.

The man before me flinched but, as if to answer my tortured prayers, didn't move away. He just trembled unable to tear his gaze from the image resting at our feet.

Desperately I curled a finger beneath his delicate chin, my thumb resting under his quivering lower lip. I pulled his gaze away from the relic between us that held his thoughts a prisoner.

"You still are," I insisted. "Because you're still that same person that stood there and had their photograph taken all that time ago. It's still you… You just forgot that's all."

He smiled a dazzlingly shy smile, still evading my intense gaze.

Suddenly his expression changed, a strained concentration fell over his features as he leaned up to his hold his face over my neck.

"You smell like something… Something I remember," He sighed slowly and unsurely.

I couldn't help myself but smile broadly at this, everything about him was incredible.

"Try and remember," I encouraged gently, my hand moving of it's own accord from his chin to rest it's palm around his neck.

He took a deep breath and let his eyes flutter shut.

"Cigarettes," he whispered, his hot breath spilling out over the exposed flesh of my neck; and indulgently I savoured every moment of the sensation.

"Y… Yeah," I stuttered breathlessly running the back of my fingers along the curve of his neck and shoulder, before letting them explore the soft strands of dark silken hair falling over his ear.

And when he pulled away to stare intently into my eyes it took all my strength not to tear him back into my embrace.

"What… Have they done to me?" He asked desperately, his voice shaking and strained; the look in his eyes stalking my mind for the answers. 

It was hard having someone there looking to me so desperately for the answers when in my mind there were so many questions of my own.

"It'll get easier," I told him. "It gets easier if you want it to. The pills you take… They make you forget, make you someone else. But it'll come back… Slowly it'll come back."

And all I wanted was to reassure him but he looked so lost and I did this to him. I had been so selfish, failed to do any part of this right.

"Is it any better? On the other side?" He asked me blankly and for a while all I could give him as an answer was a melancholic smile.

"Yeah… It's better," I tell him. "Sometimes it's hard, harder than I ever expected it to be. When I left Battery City I could never have known what awaited me… But it gets better, because it's real and you're free and every day I feel so many things I'd forgotten I could, I'd forgotten I'd even stopped feeling. But… It is hard… It's like you've spent years walking around with a stick to prop you up and suddenly it's been taken out from under you."

I wondered if my honesty was really what was needed right now, but I couldn't lie to him. And miraculously looking into his eyes I could see that he seemed quietly content at my answer for the moment.

"I've seen your face so many times before, you know in all those wanted posters… But I never really saw it 'til now… Is that weird?" He laughed thoughtfully.

I shook my head, shyly, looking down to the ground for support.

"No," I whispered to the scorched earth at my feet, the odd pebble that glinted in the sunlight like fools gold.

"What you said on the phone…" He said in a way that told me he'd thought of it a thousand times or more. 

"It… It made me feel… Like. Well… I couldn't understand it but I felt something that… I can't explain," and as he spoke, he looked to me as if he were trying to work out some ancient and eternal riddle; and I felt the guilt as clearly as I felt the air on my face, the suns touch on my skin, I'd given him so much to deal with, so much more than I should have.

"And do you know what?" He smiled. "It felt amazing… I felt amazing. I wanted so much to feel those things that you described. But I was afraid, I was so afraid that it'd been so long…" Suddenly his expression pained, his voice cracked. "That I'm so damaged that I can't… I wouldn't."

Without thinking I gathered him up in my arms, run my desperate trespassing hands over and down his back; from his shoulder blades that froze at my confused attack to his waist that trembled beneath my foreign touch.

And I knew this was all my fault, it'd been too much too soon, but how was I to know that there'd be someone in this world that could make me so reckless, so out of control?

It pained me as he tried to put his hands upon me, each time as they finally settled they would pull away as if I were made of molten rock. Finally he rested a hand on my hip, as I held him close as if he'd run if I let go, the other I felt brush away the strands of hair that fell over my neck before he reached down uncertain lips to kiss the crook of my neck. They felt hot and damp, familiar yet entirely alien to me; like when you go back to a place you haven't visited in decades, and you find that the place is still exactly the same, it's just you that's changed.

It shocked me that it was him who was leading this, as he pulled off my leather jacket, allowing it to fall to the earth behind me, the dull thud of impact seemingly miles away from here.

_Please, please, tell me it's not the drugs. Tell me they don't make him as susceptible to my control as they had done theirs…_

His hands ran up under my shirt and my body didn't know how to respond.

His kisses climbed over my jaw and finally reached my aching lips, capturing the top one lightly before moving down to my trembling lower. My mouth begged to feel his, the tease more than I could bear after this many years of being alone, not even my memories for comfort. I reached up to clasp his face and forced our lips desperately together, our tongues meeting in a glorious frenzy.

And before I could think of any more than kissing this man for the rest of my life I felt his hands shaking upon my belt, unbuckling it with alarming precision that shocked me into inaction, left my hands trembling upon his face. But he pulled them gently away, our lips still locked in a kiss, and guided them down to his waistband with certain hands.

_How can you be so sure, so steady, when I can't find my way?_

We released each other's lips momentarily as we gasped breathlessly in unison, unashamed, liberated by our desires.

He ran his hand delicately over my clothed arousal and it was all I could do to let out a quiet pleasure laden moan. All I could think was that I wanted him to feel the same, needed it, as sure as I needed the oxygen that filled my lungs and enriched the blood that flowed through my veins. Frantically I unbuttoned and unzipped his fly as he unhurriedly did the same to me.

"I don't remember my name," he sighed against my lips pressed to his, before capturing them again in an ardent kiss.

We stumbled backwards until I felt the back of my legs hit the side of my car, my body falling helplessly against it as my legs threatened to fail me.

It felt as if somehow we were teaching each other how to be in this moment, as we wrapped our palms around the other's waiting erection and moved in slow gentle strokes, unhurried and tender.

His free hand tangled into my hair affectionately as I gave in to the fervent urge to trail my hands down his heaving chest. Our gasps and moans became more frequent, harder to suppress, and I felt his body giving in, leaning its weight upon me, a pleasant pressure pressing on my chest as we both struggled to support ourselves. And I think we had forgotten about composure as his strokes sped up and my hand reached out to clutch his waist. I matched mine in response as everything in this became a frenzy.

I couldn't stop my groans from falling into his mouth as he bit my lower lip seductively and let his hot breath spill out and over my chin.

_You're incredible… A miracle. A delicate rose blossoming from a pile of dry dirt._

His strokes deepened around me, and really this was more than I could take, but I did my best to match them. I felt his body spasm, the muscles beneath my fingers constrict, as he released my lips to scream to the sky. I knew he was coming and that thought sent me, mercilessly, over the edge. I let my head fall to the centre of his chest, let my climax be stifled upon it; him falling into me helplessly, as the result of our encounter ran slowly down my hand.

Forgetting myself for yet another time I grasped my stranger's shoulders impulsively, because I couldn't bear the thought that he might go. But he just leant his head wearily against my chest, his energy spent, his arms wrapping tenderly around my back.

I kissed the top of his head uncertainly, fearful of all the terrible things he might be thinking, listening to his broken breaths as if they might provide a clue.

"It's Frank," he said breathlessly. "My name was Frank…"

"Frank," I whispered back dreamily.

"Yeah," he replied hoarsely, and he sounded as he might, at any moment, cry. "And I used to love late night showings of old horror movies, you know those low budget fake-blood-filled pictures… And I smoked… I remember that smell and I think I must've smoked." Gripping me tighter with each word that he spoke, "And I was born in October, October 31st… Halloween."

He laughed a little and I cradled him in my arms, lost as to what to say.

_You're so much more than I could've hoped… Please don't find me a disappointment…_

"I sound kinda spooky don't I?" He mused to my silence, breaking away to search my eyes; and his were still as captivating, as endless and as deep as the ones in my photograph.

"Not at all," I assured him earnestly. "But you know, you'll get a new name now. Your name becomes a reminder of who you were before, based on the memories of your old life. I'm Party Poison, because of the things I remember about myself, about my past. The person that I was… I was…" I broke off fearfully. I couldn't bear to tell him who I'd been, the things I remembered of Gerard. The partying, the drugs, getting lost in all those exquisite poisons.

"And you'll get yours too, based on what you remember… You know, I didn't remember the name I had had, the name my parents gave me for such a long time… I'd been Party Poison so long that it felt like the only name I'd ever had… Before I remembered…" I stopped short my train of thought, becoming lost in the admiration I held in the man below my touch… Frank.

"Can I choose it?" He enquired lazily, nestling his head back into the comfort of my chest, laying his palm beside it and twirling folds of my shirt intently between his fingers.

"Sure," I smiled happily, finally allowing my hand to rest gently and tenderly across his hair, before running my fingers gingerly from root to tip.

"Fun Ghoul," he laughed happily; a clear, pure, and joyful laugh. "I think I'd like that… But…"

"But?" I urged, noting the seriousness that hung about his last word.

"But when we're alone together… I'd like you to call me Frank. I want that to be a secret we can share," he answered, unexpected, yet in so many ways heartening.

"Yeah," I replied, finding myself yet again astonished by the many wonders he could bestow upon me with just his being. "I'd like that too and you could call me Gerard…"

"Gerard…" He sighed contentedly. "You'll help me… Be again, won't you?" His tone changing. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I don't know how to do this alone."

"I have a funny feeling," I replied. "That we'll be helping each other."

"Let's go," I said, as Frank pulled away to button his fly, grinning in a way that was hopelessly charming.

"There's so much I want you to see, to tell you and to show you," I said, each word as heartfelt as the last.

He reached over slowly a wry smile across his face and slowly buttoned up my jeans, staring intently into my eyes.

"Me too," he replied seductively, making my heart miss a beat and my lungs a breath.

"Me too," he whispered again as we jumped into my car and headed off into our futures; the Polaroid I'd left discarded at our feet blowing gently across the dry deserts earth.

**Author's Note:**

> Contest Entry  
> Theme/Prompt: Scatologia... A paraphilia, meaning deriving sexual pleasure from making obscene phone calls.


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